


And I Did Eat

by CopperBeech



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale is "just enough of a bastard to be worth knowing" (Good Omens), Aziraphale is a fangirl, Bryn Terfel, Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Don't we all like a bit of a bad boy?, Erotic Coldplay, Exactly What It Says on the Tin, Food Metaphors, Food Sex, Jealous Crowley (Good Omens), Light Angst, M/M, Mild Smut, Opera references, Oral Sex, Post-Canon, Selfridge's
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-16 05:20:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28576641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CopperBeech/pseuds/CopperBeech
Summary: Aziraphale is peckish. Crowley goes shopping. Messy smut and sentimentality ensue. That’s it, that’s the fic.Aziraphale blushes. It’s a blush that has nothing to do with prudishness (he’s learned that over the past week), it's more Aziraphale's way of flirting,you big bad demon, I have no choice but to allow you to ravish me.It’s fucking adorable.Unfortunately for Crowley’s adoring needs, the bottom of the carrier chooses that moment to give way in a soundless pulpy disintegration, scattering jars of jam and marinated pears, deli containers and ribbon-tied boxes of liqueur sweets all over the already violated carpet. He’s left with the carton of melting sorbet balanced in his hand, drooling slowly between his fingers and into his cuff.“It seems a terrible shame to waste that,” says Aziraphale.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 47
Kudos: 92





	And I Did Eat

**Author's Note:**

> The first few paragraphs of this fic have been sitting around in my slush document for almost a year without much of an idea where to go, and then I replayed one of my fave opera videos and... well.

“My dear, there’s absolutely nothing in here.”

This is unfair, Crowley thinks. There's a canister of oily, black-burnt Italian roast beans; five assorted bottles of Fever Tree quinine water; a delicatessen tub of Szechuan pickles (he’d taken a notion for something especially fiery one night, but he can’t remember how long ago that was); and the leftovers of the cannellini they’d ordered in a week ago, after Aziraphale had asked to come back up and see the flat now that he _wasn’t_ knackered from saving the world and that sort of thing. There’s never been that much in the flat to see, just memorabilia and a lot of plants, which Crowley’d suspected Aziraphale of wanting to soothe after hearing the demon whip them all to attention, and he’d assumed they were going to go out afterward, but that hadn’t been quite how things went.

It’s been – if this isn’t the wrong phrase, and in the best possible sense – one hell of a week.

He feels a bit defensive about the refrigerator, but doesn’t say anything, because the light inside’s the only light on in the kitchen and it makes Aziraphale’s pale curls, and the sprinkling of hairs on his thighs, and the thatch visible through the open placket of the shirt that’s all he's got on ( _no, Crowley tries to tell himself, I’m not staring)_ resemble a full-body halo. If there’s ever been an angel entitled to such a thing, Crowley muses, it’s _his_ angel.

Which is a phrase he still doesn’t dare to speak aloud, for fear of the world almost ending a second time, and which sounds thunderous even inside his own head.

Aziraphale pokes in the freezer. Crowley’s pretty sure that frozen anything is the kind of fare that Aziraphale would typically banish to the uttermost Antipodes, but it doesn’t matter because the only thing in there is a bottle of lemon Stolichnaya and a container of whisky stones.

“Guess I just don't think of it, angel,” he says a little abashedly. Crowley goes for days or weeks without eating sometimes; he's always had a complicated relationship with human food, he'll get the odd craving for something (those pickles had been somehow _necessary_ ), then barely be able to look at the stuff the next day. But Aziraphale loves his victuals, Aziraphale gets _peckish_. He should have laid something in. The Ritz doesn't take even miraculous reservations in the wee hours of the morning.

“Could miracle something up,” he suggests hopefully, though between averting the Apocalypse and an insatiable angel, he's barely got a miracle left to his name.

“It doesn’t taste the same.”

Aziraphale leans further into the fridge, as if it might be backless like the wardrobe to Narnia and lead to _something_ that would be a tolerable midnight snack. Crowley resists the impulse to lean forward too and press a love-bite onto that delectable Celestial bum, which has rapidly become _his_ idea of a tolerable (more than tolerable) midnight snack.

“My place next time,” says the angel firmly. “I keep a _proper_ larder.”

Which stings. Crowley’s made a speciality of seeing that the angel gets whatever he wants, and there's a video gallery in his head: Aziraphale, totally absorbed in a savoury that’s a dainty work of art in itself; licking the cream and jam and chocolate of a torte from the tines of a silver fork; even eating a debased Mr. Whippy cone with a Cadbury flake stuck in the top. (He always pulls it out, first thing, and sucks the soft ice cream off the chocolate with the same little hum evoked by the Ritz's vanilla mousseline; Crowley wonders how he gets away with it in front of children without being arrested for public indecency). Watching Aziraphale enjoy his food over the centuries has always provoked an uproar of lechery and yearning and jealousy, as absurd as it is to be jealous of Mr. Whippy.

Now he doesn’t have to stifle those appetites. Clearly, his work’s cut out.

And thus, the next afternoon, a demon finds himself confronting the Food Hall at Selfridge’s with a loaded bankcard, a shopping trolley, and the barest ghost of a clue.

* * *

As a rule, Crowley doesn’t _shop._ He keeps an eye on fashion trends (when he's not actually setting them). He makes surgical strikes to buy liquor. Selects plants for their meekness and biddability. But he doesn’t _browse_ stores, even though he’d invented the concept of retail therapy – a delectable stew of avarice and regret if he does say so himself, running up bills, frustrating partners, and clogging up storage space.

Now he pauses at an artfully arranged display of _chocolate indulgences –_ cocoa mix, pink chocolate truffles, gianduja cake. Ridiculous markups are another one of his, but twenty-seven quid for cocoa mix? You could get a damned (at least if Crowley was drinking it) decent bottle of wine for that. An array of small gift baskets adorns the other side of the aisle; the vintage port and Stilton combo looks like Aziraphale. A hundred and thirty-two.

“Shut the fridge,” he mutters, then realizes what he’s said and all but facepalms. It doesn’t matter – he’s got money to burn on this (the Infernal expense account’s a thing of the past, but everyone’s got a side fiddle, and six thousand years, or at least the part of it that came after the invention of banking, is a long time to rack up compound interest and tax-free dividends. Better yet, the Inland Revenue has somehow miraculously never retained any records on one Anthony J. Crowley).

Most importantly, nothing‘s too good for his angel. He bungs the canister of cocoa into the cart.

Half an hour later the toylike little trolley brims with shortbreads, pates, olive melange, wine-marinated pears, and two bottles of a delicate pink rose called Whispering Angel. There are miniature quiches, Sevillana jamon, focaccia, onions _confiture_. As he considers a display freezer full of sorbets – the Ritz would barely consider presenting one of their decadent, unctuous desserts without a palate cleanser of strawberry-mint or watermelon-lime ice – he wonders if he has actually pushed some limit, because it feels as if his Barclays card is trying to make a break from the clip in his pocket.

Oh. That’s not his bankcard vibrating, it’s his phone, the screen displaying the image of a little wing-handled mug. He feels faintly furtive (am I busted?) and protective and aflutter, and a dozen other ways a demon definitely ought not to feel. He thumbs the screen.

“ ‘Lo, angel.” Very cool. Very offhand. The voice of a new lover/hereditary adversary/lifelong bestie who’s not, absolutely _not_ blocking up the path to the register and snatching up a five-quid vacuum packet of sun-dried tomatoes from a last-minute-temptation rack (had to come up with that one, hadn’t he?). Certainly not launching the packet into the air, grabbing for it, seeing it drop into his cart, welp, probably was going to buy it anyway.

“Oh! Crowley! So glad I caught you – I’d quite forgotten, everything’s just driven it out of my head, but Sir Bryn's in recital at the Royal Albert this evening -- say you'll join me? You remember him, the thing with the apple? _Don Giovanni?”_

"Oh. Right." Crowley does indeed remember -- the debauched Don luring the peasant bride, the stage business of rolling an apple above the neckline of her dress, where all the perfumes of a human corporation bloom out to be snuffled and savoured, until they both bit into it, a feast that was also a kiss. His fangs had ached at the root as he imagined doing that with the angel (bow tie dangling, waistcoat unbuttoned), spraying them both with ripe juices, swallowing his scent. The post-opera dinner had been a nightmare of spoony fangirling over the Welsh baritone's repertory of bad-boy roles, the business of the Don being pulled down to Hell at the end had never sat well to begin with, and Crowley had sulked for a week afterward.

On the other hand, at that point they hadn’t been spending every night (and some afternoons) tangling his bedsheets into knots. “S’pose, got nothin’ on, do we?”

“That would be later.” Crowley closes his eyes and tries to get control of his imagination, which is yielding images that don’t belong in the middle of the Food Hall. “Shall we meet for a bite beforehand? Queen’s Gate is always reliable, and the Park Terrace has those lovely _beurre blanc_ scallops – they’re both close – “

“Stop in for a drink first and see what we feel like? Picked up a couple things for you – ” _I’ll have all this put away, and just casually ask him to get some ice from the fridge, and –_

“Are you _quite_ sure? I notice that it’s become very difficult to get out of your flat once we’re both in it.“

“Cross my heart, angel. I’ll be good.”

“You can hardly expect me to believe that.” Oh, the bastard. He can all but see the little pucker, the lift of the pale eyebrows.

“I will consider your _every_ desire." He finds his voice sinking to a purr, he's just fine, thank you. "All of them. How’s that?” This conversation’s getting a little delicate, and Crowley parries some pointed looks with glances over the tops of his glasses, leaving fellow shoppers with a lingering memory that some terrifying revelation came to them in between the champagne endcap and the patisserie counter, if they could only remember what it was.

“Well, the customers _have_ been _insufferable,_ I really need to get away. Perhaps if I got there early enough? I can be round in fifteen.” Eager little minx.

“Ah – well, I’m out, actually – half an hour? Had a few errands – ”

“Splendid. I’ll be there on the dot of four. Yes, yes – “ And it really does sound as if he’s dealing with a pestiferous number of people, so maybe the excuse isn’t _that_ flimsy, but in the past he’d have just locked up and gone for a turn somewhere, and now he’s going to spend the time snogging a demon –

…who’s currently gridlocking Selfridge’s. The glare from the woman trying to nudge by him is weapons-grade.

“Sorry,” he mouths, “missus always remembers something last minute,” before reflecting that that makes him sound thoroughly whipped. Which, of course, he probably is.

The late summer sun's left the Bentley sauna-warm, the way his serpent senses like it. Her purr’s always comforting, her agility its own state of flow. She slides through roundabouts, breezes by obstructions –

Until she doesn’t. It’s one thing to pass an omnibus that’s left an almost nonexistent gap; it’s another when the whole intersection’s blocked off with sawhorses because there’s a works crew doing something about a gushing water main. _Sorry, sorr, detour’s that way._ Which just happens to be the exact wrong direction.

Oh, all right. There was a mews back there he could dodge down, except that now a van’s taken up the width of it for what appeared to be an endless process of unloading. Audley Street? He could loop around Grosvenor Square, which is –

– full of embassies, and there’s some sort of badly managed security cordon. What should have been a ten minute trip the length of Mayfair is rapidly approaching the half-hour mark.

Okay, retrace his steps. Which would almost be a faster way to cover the distance at this point, one snakeskin-clad foot in front of the other, if he didn’t have a comprehensive sampling of Selfridge’s finest in the passenger seat, including the pint of lavender sorbet, which is starting…

to…

…melt.

He can see the stuff leaking out onto the leather, and feel the car taking offence. But it's taking all the miracle he's got just to navigate London in early rush. After holding the Bentley together the length of the M40, and then stopping Time to give Adam a chance to sort things, his miracle capacity's still rebuilding gradually, a bit like the slow progress bar on an overused mobile. Keeping-things-cold miracles aren't his strong suit to begin with, and aren’t refrozen things meant to be a bit nasty, anyway? It's just dessert melting, not his tyres or hoses or the blades of his wipers. There's nothing at stake but a little mortification.

"Everything's OK," he mutters.

The sorbet keeps melting.

And Crowley is definitely _not_ chill.

* * *

It’s four-fifteen when the Bentley slides smoothly into a space that mysteriously becomes legal the moment she occupies it, a miracle he’s been saving up since getting inexplicably turned round the wrong way in Park Lane. He bounds out of the driver’s seat with two carriers looped over one wrist, the disintegrating bottom of the third clutched in his other hand, sticky, aromatic syrup seeping between his fingers and over his sleeve; beams a promise at the Bentley to manage cleanup later, getting a distinct wave of sulkiness in return.

Deliquescing sorbet drips on the lobby carpet under the gaze of the disapproving concierge; leaves a small archipelago on the floor of the lift as he double-times out and down the hall. He juggles the loaded carriers, hoping he’s got a fingersnap left for the entry lock –

“Goodness,” says Aziraphale.

Crowley peers owlishly over his armload..

“Went shopping,” he confesses.

“I see that.” Does he sound _amused?_

“Just – uh – thought I’d get in a few things. Hadn’t been to the store in a while, realized last night – “

“You _never_ go to the store,” says Aziraphale. “I never even see you eat.”

“Oh _yes_ you do.”

Aziraphale blushes. It’s a blush that has nothing to do with prudishness (he’s learned that over the past week), it's more Aziraphale's way of flirting, _you big bad demon, I have no choice but to allow you to ravish me._ It’s fucking adorable.

Unfortunately for Crowley’s adoring needs, the bottom of the carrier chooses that moment to give way in a soundless pulpy disintegration, scattering jars of jam and marinated pears, deli containers and ribbon-tied boxes of liqueur sweets all over the already violated carpet. He’s left with the carton of melting sorbet balanced in his hand, drooling slowly between his fingers and into his cuff.

“It seems a terrible shame to waste that,” says Aziraphale, lifting the carton with a little vacuum-burst of miracle that Crowley senses has refrozen the sorbet inside perfectly.

The angel looks once at the glaze coating Crowley’s fingers, the little puddle in his palm, and dips his head.

* * *

_Fuck, warn me,_ Crowley doesn’t say, because he momentarily stops breathing as the angel lifts Crowley’s hand to his mouth and sucks his way down the forefinger. There’s a soft squirming of his tongue over that little bridge of skin at its base, and then a quick engulfment of the middle finger, a slow drag as he cleans off the film of lavender and citrus and sugar. “Mm, delicious,” he murmurs, turning Crowley’s hand this way and that, lapping his fingers like someone catching the drips from an ice lolly, finally turning it palm up, not to miss a bit.

Crowley’s vaguely aware that he’s dropped the other two shopping bags and that he’s remembered to breathe again, because he’s sucking air past his teeth in a reverse hiss. Aziraphale’s obscenely agile tongue is circling his palm, chasing the clinging goo there into the centre where it’s disastrously sensitive, because that, of course, is where he wants to flick it like someone cleaning an old painting with the lightest of strokes. (Crowley’d seen that done once, with a portrait that Aziraphale sat for, and spent the entire experience in crippling suspense.) He _ha_ s to be offering a deliberate reminder of just last night, when he’d circled that velvet tip around another part of Crowley’s body before dipping into the centre –

\-- and _then he makes it,_ that _sound_ that Crowley’s carried home delicately in his imagination like someone holding a blown-glass globe with the lightest touch of fingertips, that’s left him motionless and speechless across from an angel lapping chocolate souffle or orange glaze or strawberry compote. He’s making it with his mouth _on_ _Crowley,_ and it’s going where it’s always gone – straight to the root of his Effort, which is threatening to stage a miraculous breakout through the felled seam of his jeans. He realizes he’s moaning too.

“Tangy, sweet, aromatic,” murmurs the angel, with delicate little finishing smacks to his fingertips. “Suits you perfectly.” He drops to one knee, and Crowley flails for the doorjamb – if he wants to do this right out in the corridor, Crowley’s game – but then begins to pick up the jars, the sweet boxes, the tubs of hummos and couscous.

“All this for me?” he says. “Darling, you take such good care of me. Let me return the favour. I have an idea.”

* * *

The little bastard’s been having ideas all week. Crowley thought he’d stopped being surprised.

It shouldn't be so arousing to have a blunt, short _almond_ tucked into the hollow of his navel - "a perfect fit," says Aziraphale - to say nothing of having it tongued out again, the salt and oil licked out of the creases and crannies. (What is he even _doing_ with a navel? He wonders every so often. Was it included in their corporation design merely for camouflage purposes? Or in case they needed to carry an almond around as an emergency snack?) “Do you remember the Marconas in that little place in Seville? I think they’d just started cultivating them.”

“Can’t really say.” He remembers very well. He didn’t taste a single one that night, but he’d pushed the dish at Aziraphale, _go on, try these, they’re different, you’ll like them._ Seeing if he could earn the reward of _that sound._ Something to take back to his rooms, replay behind his closed eyes while he did things that demons shouldn’t need to do.

“You so rarely indulged yourself.” _Oh yes, I did. ”_ Here, have a taste _._ I know snakes only _eat_ rarely but – “ The angel’s lips are oily and fragrant with truffle salt, and he licks it away slowly, chasing the finest grains and the tiniest smear. “And – oh, this takes me back, remember when all the good wines were pink like this? _Vin d’une nuit._ It was such a novelty when they learned to mature the reds properly. I fear I became a bit carried away.” And his voice is, indeed, barely audible when he says “I know you’ll at least drink,” and the kiss is deep and open this time and awash in the pale vintage called _Whispering Angel._

Crowley drinks his angel down, wraps him in a wiry grip, fingers clutching the feathery wisps of his hair as he chases the last particle of acid sweetness around his mouth.

“You’ve brought so many lovely familiar things. The labneh, remember Tyre? I think that was the first time we had it – the Greeks were in charge, if I remember – “ He’s holding a swirl of strained yoghurt dripping with olive oil to Crowley’s lips, only to eat it off them as soon as the demon accepts it. The second swipe through the container digs a larger divot, and Crowley holds the finger in place, flickering the tongue that’s beginning to fork, he can’t help it, overwhelmed by even the faint tart scent. There are times when just the smell of a meal is almost more than he can take, he noses his way through life as any serpent does, but being overwhelmed might be the right idea about now.

The dabs of baba ghanouj, beetroot dip, za’atar-sprinkled hummus are a mezze set out from Crowley’s breastbone to the little pad of his belly, a catalogue of their centuries in the Middle East. The sweet hazelnut paste (“remember that winter in Vienna?”) is almost the colour of Crowley’s hair when the angel thumbs it into the divot of his collarbone, only to lick it away thoroughly (the moan is languorous when he pauses half way). _Very_ thoroughly, brushing their lips together at last to let him savour its ghost on his breath.

“And Fereydoon would never let us leave a sitting at the Ritz without a tart ice,” he says. “I don’t believe they’ve ever had this combination though. You always find something new.” Crowley doesn’t interrogate the miracle that must have brought the sorbet carton to Aziraphale’s left hand, one of Crowley’s silver spoons to his right; he’s straddling the demon’s wiry legs, trapping them with his own soft weight as he digs the spoon in, leaves it a moment to stroke up Crowley’s sticky, quivering stomach. He’s starting to float a little, the way he does when he’s a bottle or two in and Aziraphale’s humming his way through a contemplation of the dessert trolley.

“I’m told there can be something very special about this,” he angel says inscrutably, “I _do_ work in Soho after all, I hear things.” He twists out the spoon, bringing away a little mound of pale sherbet, looks down thoughtfully, and then Crowley’s back snaps into an arch, anchored at the bottom by the double-hundredweight of angel on his thighs, as the curved, icy back of the spoon circles his nipple, comes to rest against it. There’s a bolt of sensation down the center of his stomach muscles and an outrageous, deliciously painful throb at the root of his cock. The thin edge of the spoon draws a mandala on his chest, dropping tiny frozen nuggets as it goes. He can’t help the noise he makes, and Aziraphale seems to like that kind of thing as much as Crowley.

“Oh, good,” says the angel, and yes, he’s doing that shimmy, that little _wriggle._ “You do enjoy it?” He thinks he’s ready for it when the spoon touches again, but he’s never really been ready for his angel, never really will be, no matter how many centuries he’s spent being astonished by that deviousness, that innocence. His hips strain up enough this time to budge Aziraphale off balance, the bowing of his back sends a tickling track of slush down his flank. He feels his ribs outlined, the sketchy trail of hair down his belly catching and dragging, a final spoonful dropping right where the hair starts to curl and spread, and then the angel’s mouth, full of icy confection, closes over his cock, and there’s absolutely no reason something that cold should be pleasure, but it is. The stiff arc of his erection feels as though it’s swelling tighter against that mischievous tongue, and the contrast as Aziraphale swallows off the melting dessert leaves a heat like nothing he’s ever felt, like sweet Hellfire, like the flame the angel gave away.

“Indecently delicious,” says Aziraphale when he draws back momentarily.

“It is. Ah. Completely _un-demonic_. To be covered in sorbet.”

“It’s un-demonic to spoil angels, dear,” says Aziraphale matter-of-factly, and takes another mouthful.

* * *

“I quite forgot the pears,” murmurs Aziraphale an indefinite amount of time later. “They looked divine.”

“ ‘ll keep in the fridge,” says Crowley muzzily, and since he’s mostly buried in duvet with his face against the slightly tickly hairs of Aziraphale’s broad soft chest, it comes out _kmthfdge._ His tongue’s still a little out of control, for one thing. At least he’s not sticking to his sheets, even though his ability to snap his difficulties away still isn’t all that.

“That was lovely,” says Aziraphale. “We’ve dined at the Ritz, and now, I believe, we’ve had our picnic.”

“Cntdthtnrgntspk,” Crowley manages, meaning _Can’t do that in Regents’ Park._

“Well. It’s not much more of a miracle to keep people from noticing. One imagines the bracing effect of the breezes. Like Eden. I remember what lovely pears grew there.”

“Mmm. You…. made that sound.” It’s been going on for a long time. “They were happy, him ‘n’ Eve, but they… kinda took it for granted. Y’always seemed so _amazed.”_

“Well, I was. Not least by you, dear. I still am.” He’s petting Crowley’s hair now, starting to put him back to sleep. “I think you must have brought home all the loveliest things we’ve shared over the centuries,” and it’s true, Aziraphale was the one eating but they were _sharing,_ and his tone says he knows it. Crowley’s drifting, he’s open to the elements, and he doesn’t even realize his mind’s gone there when he blurts out “ _Do_ you like barbecue?"

“What? I’ve had it, American thing, messy, but some of the best things are – why?”

“Just – popped into my head. When I was up there. Bit of improv. Figured Gabriel wouldn’t know one way or another, said it was going to be a _barbecue,_ and – “

His voice is suddenly shuddering, _where the Heaven did this come from,_ except that’s exactly where it came from, _post coitam omni animale triste,_ maybe. Aziraphale’s taken by surprise all right but his arms merely tighten. Finally Crowley manages: “ _Satan,_ angel, they were going to _burn_ you without even lettin' you speak – best damned one of them, and – “ he can’t help laughing when he realizes what he’s said, though the sound's not much different from the ones he’s been making.

The fingers in his hair are slow, hypnotic. “Shh. It’s all right. We’re safe.”

He nods against the angel’s shoulder. “Only ‘member when I was up there – didn’t know it would work – “

“I had faith in Agnes.”

“Don’t do _faith._ Demon.” His breath is still catching but he can speak. “Kept thinkin’ – how I pushed the Arrangement – wanted'n excuse to be with you, talk to you – see you enjoyin’ things – and all the time they might've done _that_ to you, all down to me – “

“My dear. I believe I was a misfit from the start. I fear it just took me a long time to see it.” There’s wine left on the bedside table, and one of Crowley’s Waterford goblets, and he sips and offers before going on. “You’re acquainted with the doctrine of _felix culpa?”_

“Yeah. _‘Cos Eve sinned, the Word was made flesh_. Saw how that worked out for the flesh. Don’t really like takin’ the rap for that part.”

“I have my own version," says Aziraphale. "You made them think for themselves, and the world we got out of that was worth everything we did to save it. Even if it’s messy, like barbecue… You made _me_ think. I must say you were very patient.” The stroking hasn’t stopped, Crowley’s breathing's quieted, and he hears the tone that always means Aziraphale’s quoting one of his poets: “ _I did not fall from grace. I leapt to freedom._ So promise you won’t be a sad snake, dear. _”_

“Mm’hm,” he promises, a promise he knows he can't keep, but he's a demon, isn't he? The memories of fire and fear and loss will linger, and he’ll never put down his rage at the Almighty until She comes down and gives him an account of Herself.

But at least he’s not jealous of Mr. Whippy any more, in fact he’s feeling downright generous, so he says, “Concert? Still time, Bentley’ll get us there.”

“You know, I think I can afford to miss it after all. I believe I have all the bad boy I need right here. And it’s not the same without the staging.” He pulls the duvet up, settling in. “You did it better anyhow.”

“Bad boy, or apple?”

“Oh, both.”

“Be your bad boy ‘f’you’ll be my angel.”

There, he’s said it.

And the world hasn’t ended. In fact, he feels as it if’s just beginning.

**Author's Note:**

> You know those lighthearted agreements monogamous people make about the short list of unattainable crushes that each has permission to bang if the impossible should ever happen? There’s only one on my list: Welsh bass baritone Bryn Terfel. I’ve seen his rendition of _La Ci Darem La Mano _[(recorded here at the Met in 2000, complete with apple) ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqPcb1nKZYg)turn a middle-aged Episcopalian woman into a puddle of jelly. As his tessitura deepened, he took on a lot more sexy-villain roles -- Iago, Mephistopheles, Scarpia -- and eventually cut an album titled _Bad Boys._
> 
> Selfridge's really does sell 27 pound tins of cocoa and a wine called Whispering Angel. I checked.
> 
> Aziraphale’s line of poetry is from Ansel Elkins' [_Autobiography of Eve_](https://poets.org/poem/autobiography-eve) (thank you, Tumblr).


End file.
